Land for All

Comment by Larry Chang on March 15, 2010 at 5:33pm

For a list of vacant public property in the District see District Facilities Plan May 2009, Table 8.1 OPM Vacant Property Inventory, pages 29-36 and special note on Reservation 13, page 37.

Comment by Stephen Oliner on March 15, 2010 at 8:01pm

Here's another listing of property owned or controlled by the DC government:
http://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/opm/dcproperties.aspx
From this site, you can export a spreadsheet that shows more than 3600 properties, about 500 of which are currently vacant. This represents roughly five times as many vacant properties as in the property inventory that Larry found. I don't know why the numbers are so different -- it's worth further research. In any case, the city obviously owns or controls a lot of vacant property. The challenge is figuring out how to persuade the city government to allow this property to be used for the benefit of people in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Comment by Benjamin Sacher on March 16, 2010 at 1:10am

Park service owns nice tracks of land that allow urban ag, but with some pretty irksome restraints. the property must be divided into little mini plots each managed by specific individuals.
Does any one know if there has been a large scale study of lead content in public spaces considered for urban ag? I feel a research project coming on.
http://dpr.dc.gov/dpr/frames.asp?doc=/dpr/lib/dpr/information/commu...

Comment by Stephen Oliner on March 16, 2010 at 8:44am

I don't know the answer to Benjamin's question about lead content in potential garden spaces. However, I did check out the link included with his post, which was very interesting. I didn't know that the DC Dept. of Parks and Recreation (DPR) has a community gardening program that allows organizations to partner with DPR to create new community gardens on DPR land. Has anyone participated in this program? It would seem to hold some potential for expanding the footprint of community gardening in DC. The city would still own the land and could take it back for other uses, but this might still be a good way to get a foot in the door.

Comment by Steve Seuser on March 16, 2010 at 8:54am

The government owned property list that Steve Oliner posted contains what appear to be actively used buildings and any other property owned by DC government. DC may have decided that the list Larry posted is somehow more available. Still, it's worth looking at both lists. I was disappointed that Larry's list didn't have more properties in Ward 1, where I live and work, but we should probably take a broader perspective on this. Maybe even some of the actively used properties would have small sections of land that could be used for gardening.

Comment by Steve Seuser on March 16, 2010 at 9:04am

The government owned property list has a nice feature in the left column -- a clickable link on the square/lot numbers that shows a map of the area with the property highlighted. I clicked on several properties I know and found many that are probably on the list for silly reasons -- late payment of property taxes -- and properties that have been sold and developed already. So this database isn't very current or necessarily accurate.

Comment by Stephen Oliner on March 16, 2010 at 9:23am

The following comment is a slightly edited version of an email that I sent to a few people that may be of general interest to our group. The email concerns the potential use of land trusts as a means to acquire land in DC on a long-term basis for community gardening. Land trust have been used for this purpose in other U.S. cities. If you're interested in participating in the project described below, please let me know.

Original email:

As a first step, it would seem useful to learn about the land trusts already in existence that focus on urban gardening. I was able to find a census of land trusts taken by the Land Trust Alliance (LTA), a nonprofit organization that promotes land conservation throughout the United States (www.landtrustalliance.org). The most recent LTA census was taken in 2005. It's a bit out-of-date, but it's still a good starting point.

To access the census, go to the LTA web page and click on "Find a Land
Trust" in "Quick Links" in the upper right part of the page. This will
bring up a map of the United States. You can then click on a particular
state to see the listing of land trusts in that state. For example, if you
click on Maryland, and then on the city of Baltimore in the Maryland map
that appears, you'll see a listing of land trusts in Baltimore. The
(short) list includes Baltimore Green Space & Land Trust, which is the
organization that I mentioned at the Food and Farming meeting. The only
way I could see to find the land trusts in a particular city was to click
on the relevant state and then click on the city in the state map. A bit
laborious, but it works.

Using U.S. Census estimates for 2008, I've listed below the 50 largest
metropolitan areas in the U.S. by population. For each one, we'd probably
want to put together contact information for the land trust (e.g., phone number, web page, contact name), a description of the land trust's activities and properties, and the trust's strategy for acquiring property. I'd be happy
to put together a draft template in Excel for recording information about
each land trust, which we could then refine as we record information for
the first several land trusts.

List of 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States

1. New York City 26. Cleveland
2. Los Angeles 27. Orlando
3. Chicago 28. San Antonio
4. Dallas/Ft. Worth 29. Kansas City
5. Philadelphia 30. Las Vegas
6. Houston 31. San Jose
7. Miami 32. Columbus (OH)
8. Atlanta 33. Indianapolis
9. Washington DC 34. Charlotte (NC)
10. Boston 35. Virginia Beach
11. Detroit 36. Austin (TX)
12. Phoenix 37. Providence
13. San Francisco/Oakland 38. Nashville
14. Seattle 39. Milwaukee
15. Riverside/Ontario/
San Bernadino 40. Jacksonville
16. Minneapolis 41. Memphis
17. San Diego 42. Louisville
18. St. Louis 43. Richmond
19. Tampa/St. Petersburg 44. Oklahoma City
20. Baltimore 45. Hartford
21. Denver 46. New Orleans
22. Pittsburgh 47. Buffalo
23. Portland (WA) 48. Birmingham (AL)
24. Cincinnati 49. Salt Lake City
25. Sacramento 50. Raleigh (NC)

Comment by Steve Seuser on May 27, 2010 at 12:59pm

See the book presentation/reception I just posted on Wed. June 2 from 6-8 p.m. showcasing Seattle's community gardens as a possible model for other cities. Go to http://ecolocity.ning.com/events and scroll down for details.

Steve

P.S. Any progress on other research?

Comment by Ecolocitizen on June 2, 2010 at 9:34am

Robin Buck sent this to me instead of posting it herself! This is dynamite. Would someone please follow up?

---------------------------------------------------------
Turn Vacant Lots Into Gardens -- It's the Law!
Posted by Ed Bruske (euclidarms@yahoo.com)

Sat May 10, 2008
Did you know there is a law in the D.C. code requiring the mayor to develop a plan for turning empty lots into gardens for food production?

It's true. The "Food Production and Urban Gardens Program" was passed into law December 1986 and calls on the mayor to create an inventory of vacant lots, make the inventory available to the public, development and promote policies that "encourage the donation and
cultivation of vacant lots.

The program would lift maintenance requirements on owners of vacant lots in exchange for citizens being able to use them as gardens; incorporate community gardens and summer youth programs into the food production effort; commit the resources of the Cooperative Extension Service toward food gardening and preparing students for careers in the
food arts; encourage food buying clubs and produce markets; develop incentives and community outreach efforts to "promote the availability of vacant lots for participation in the Food Production and Urban Gardens Program."

Seems like this law was just a bit ahead of its time. Now that everyone wants to buy and grow local food, whatever happened to it?

You can find it in the D.C. Code, Chapter 4, sections 48-401 and 48-402.

Comment by Steve Seuser on June 2, 2010 at 5:45pm

DC Dept. of Housing and Community Develop Auctions 5 Vacant Lots

The link below shows 18 properties being auctioned on June 30 by DHCD. The last five properties in the listing are (or will be) vacant lots. http://realestate.alexcooper.com/featured/gallery/8/

I'm curious to find out how vacant lots in the city could be designated as community gardens or otherwise be used for local food production.

Any thoughts?

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